I would never have imagined that sitting with grief would have deepened me and my life, enabling me to be so at ease sitting with the dying and providing comfort through my voice and presence.

Decades ago I had a profound healing experience. It was a time of great loss and change. I was physically disabled and my relationship ended at the same time. I had to adapt to life and my circumstances in new ways. I was deeply grieving these losses. I did not know how to go on. I was in such despair that my internal judges stopped functioning. I opened to something I had not previously known existed; namely using my own voice to teach myself what I needed to know to move forward in my life.

It began with small, barely audible sounds of grief that effortlessly came out of me because that is what needed to happen. I needed to grieve all the loss in my life. So every day I let these sounds flow out of me. Little by little, they grew longer, louder, they undulated, they moved up and down. I just got out of my own way and let them happen.

With time, as certain feelings or energetic states were expressed and honored, they no longer had a hold on me. Then other sounds would appear. I moved through a spectrum of sound which honored my pain, but also began to include other possibilities. I did this daily for a very long time.

Eventually, I began to use my voice to gently explore different ways of feeling. At first, I could not be in these new feeling states for more than a few seconds. The energetic qualities of joy, delight and awe were just too much for my body. I didn’t know how to live in these spaces.

However, by practicing daily I became more comfortable with them. With time I could stay in these states for longer periods of time.

It is amazing what we can teach ourselves by listening to our bodies and to our voices. As we increase our awareness, we have a greater capacity to feel and not get stuck, but rather to create vocal pathways of possibility for new and different ways of living in our bodies and in the world.